Bac, Max

Algerian whirl

Algerian whirl by Max Bac translated by Paola Levante. Algerian whirl is a novel set in Algeria and entirely written in Algeria, in one of the most closed, most hypocritical and backward paces, but principally on of the most strongly Islamic places in the whole African country: M'Sila. Here the protagonist, thrown into this traumatic reality after 55 years of comfortable life in Bologna, will learn the Arab culture through the stories of the locals, and will collide with it in all those manifestations of fanaticism, of dullness and backwardness, closely related to religion, which characterizes the Arab man, while he will embrace and defend strenuously the courageous and heroic determination of women, in fact relegated to the condition of inferior beings by the so-called Family Code, which became law in Algeria in 1984. He will get in touch with Algeria's troubled history and he will know the tragic events that have characterized it: the domination far from being loving of the French, the civil war, which lasted for almost ten years, the devastating earthquake in Algiers, the nuclear tests conducted by the Gaullist government during the Cold War, up to the present day when the population still lives in extreme poverty, despite Algeria is a major producer of oil in the world, and in hardship, which is seen especially among the young population, where the unemployment rate is still bordering 50%, and where, therefore, Al Qaeda finds fertile ground for gathering volunteers for its cruel actions. Amidst these slices of the history of one of the most oppressed African states, the hero will know at his own expense the danger of Arab women, but more importantly, helped by a series of chance events, he will begin to clarify the mysteries of his family, discovering that he had been living for 55 years in the midst of lies, falsehood and untold truths, and that all the questions of his past led straight to Algeria.